Salt Magic
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The epic, Eisner Award-winning graphic novel about a jealous witch, a withering curse, and one girl's journey to save her family-- no matter the cost.
Recipient of the Eisner Award for Best Publication for Kids ages 9–12
When Vonceil's older brother, Elber, comes home to their family's Oklahoma farm after serving on the front lines of World War I, things aren't what she expects. His experiences have changed him into a serious and responsible man who doesn't have time for Vonceil anymore. He even marries the girl he had left behind.
Then a mysterious and captivating woman shows up at the farm and confronts Elber for leaving her in France. When he refuses to leave his wife, she puts a curse on the family well, turning the entire town's water supply into saltwater. Who is this lady dressed all in white, what has she done to the farm, and what does Vonceil's old uncle Dell know about her?
To find out, Vonceil will have to strike out on her own and delve deep into the world of witchcraft, confronting dangerous relatives, shapeshifting animals, a capricious Sugar Witch, and the Lady in White herself--the foreboding Salt Witch. The journey will change Vonceil, but along the way she'll learn a lot about love and what it means to grow up.
Hope Larson is the author and illustrator of the Eisner Award nominated All Summer Long and the illustrator of the Eisner Award winning A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel. Salt Magic is an utterly unique graphic fairy tale complete with striking illustrations by Rebecca Mock.
Named to the Little Maverick Graphic Novel Reading List
An ALSC Notable Children's Book
An ALA Graphic Novel's & Comics Round Table Top Ten Best Graphic Novels for Children Selection
A Mighty Girl Best Book of the Year
A Booklist Editors' Choice
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When her older brother Elber returns to Gypsum, Okla., from WWI profoundly changed and ready to settle down, 12-year-old Vonceil misses his adventurous spirit, which previously matched her own. After Elber marries his sweetheart, Amelia accused at the wedding of being a witch his past intrudes in the form of the arrival of an elegant woman who nursed him in Paris. Spurned, the newcomer turns the family spring the only reliable source of water in a drought affecting the farming community to saline. Determined to lift the curse, Vonceil rides out at night, encountering her bizarre family history and a hidden world of dangerous magical beings that will require grit, resourcefulness, and unexpected allies to navigate. Mock's washed-out, dusty palette and carefully observed fashion swiftly conjures rural Oklahoma in 1919, while occasional bursts of bright, clear color separate the magical from the mundane. Despite uneven pacing at some transitional moments, this story by the previous collaborators (Compass South) unfolds skillfully, taking time to develop memorable heroine Vonceil and her quotidian world, whose characters cue as white, before setting her on an adventure that echoes fantasy classics yet feels entirely distinct. Ages 10 14.
